Top 10 Free Social Media Marketing Tools

Due to the advantages of maintaining a proper social media presence, a lot of business now have to spend a significant amount of time and money on it. In terms of money, in 2014 alone the ad spend on social media was around $8.5 billion and is projected to rise to $14 billion by 2018. Now in addition to the cost of social ads and promotion there is also the cost in time and money of maintaining your various social networks. It takes time and thought to create and post content, and a lot of time to interact with followers.

Fortunately, just like SEO management, there are a now a lot of tools available for social media management. Fortunately although a lot of the tools are paid only which can be an issue for smaller businesses, there are also free tools which you can use. With some intelligent use of the freely available tools and some good tracking practices, you can improve your social media presence without spending a cent. Here are four of the top free tools ,or suites that have free tiers for smaller or individual use:

Likeable Hub

This is a complete social media management solution for small and medium sized businesses. It aids in everything from content creation to lead generation and more. There are various paid plans, however the free version allows you create your own landing pages, mobile websites and enhance your posts and tweets. It also comes with a mobile app which provides a single location to manage all your social interaction.

Buffer

With Buffer you can analyze follower activity on existing posts and come up with the best time to schedule future posts for maximum effect. One of the few tools that have a browser extension from where you can easily share and schedule content. Some of its key features are scheduling on different social networks and analytics. There are several paid plans but it remains free for individual or personal use.

TweetDeck

Some businesses are focused entirely on Twitter and have no other social presence. Those tend to be tech or related sites and publications whose entire audience is on Twitter. For them something like TweetDeck is ideal. It has some of the most advanced features for Twitter management. Multiple Twitter list panels, custom timelines, searches and team based accounts just to name a few. These features will save you hours when managing your Twitter account. The best part is that thanks to Twitter p

Hootsuite

The most popular and probably the best of all the social media tools available online, and it is used by more than 10 million people. It allows you to connect to more than 35 social networks. It has everything you need from scheduling posts, analysis, reports and social media listening. It also makes sharing easier with a browser extension and RSS feed capabilities. It is free for personal use but there are pricier payment plans for larger companies.